Manifold heater



May 15, 1923.

W. T. SElTZ MANIFOLD @HEATER Filed Aug. 19 1921 FlG.1

Patented Ma 15, 1923.

UNITED STATES WALTER T. SEITZ, 0F PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

MANIFOLD HEATER.

Application filed August 19, 1921. Serial 1T0. 493,696.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, WA TER T. SEITZ, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Pittsburgh, in the county of Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Manifold Heaters; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof.

My invention relates to manifold heaters for automobile engines and other internal combustion motors, and its object is to provide a heater which shall be effective in operation and which may be installed in an ordinary automobile engine without altering any of the parts of the engine or boring holes in the manifold intake pipe or elsewhere in the engine.

It has long been recognized that it is desirable to preheat the mixture of gas and vapor that enters an internal combustion engine, especially when the engine is cold, in order to atomize the fuel more thoroughly and thereb place the mixture in better condition or. explosion. Various means have been proposed for accomplishing this result, including heating elements intended to be wrapped around the manifold intake, or to be introduced into the manifold intake through openings bored for that purpose. Such contrivances have required more or less time and skilled labor for attaching them to the engine, and it is found that most owners of automobiles will put up with the disadvantage of slow starting in cold weather, rather than have the necessary holes bored in the manifold intake, or other changes made for attaching amanifold heater.

In every standard automobile engine the oarbureter is attached to the manifold intake pipe or directly to the manifold by means of flanges which are bolted together with a gasket between them. My present invention consists broadly in making this gasket a heating element which may be sub stituted for the ordinary gasket by taking out the bolts from the flanges, removing the ordinary gasket, inserting in its place the heating asket of my present invention and then rep acing the bolts. The heating gasket is referably of the same thickness as the or inary gasket which it replaces, so that none of the parts of the engine are thrown out of adjustment.

In its preferred form, the heating gasket includes a coil of wire which is carried in the central opening of the gasket so as to be in the line of-flow of the combustion mixture. The gasket is also provided with suitable terminals and insulation, and may be connected to the battery or to the motor of the automobile, a switch being preferably provided for controlling the circuit through the heater so that it may be used, if desired, only when starting the engine.

In the accompanying drawing which shows the form in which I now prefer to construct my invention, Fig. 1 is a side elevational view of the intake manifold of an automobile showing the connection to the carbureter and the heating gasket, with a diagram of the electric connections; Fig. 2 is a vertical sectional view taken on the line 22, Fig. 3; Fig. 3 is a plan view of the complete gasket; Figs. 4 to 8 are perspective views of the several layers of material of which the gasket is composed; Fig. 9 is a perspective view of the assembled gasket; Fig. 10 is an enlarged longitudinal section through the central part of the gasket, the section being taken lengthwise through Fig. 9; Fig. 11 .is a plan view similar to Fig. 3, showing a modified form of gasket; Fig. 12 is a partial side view of the device shown in Fig. 11; and Fig. 13 is a perspective view of a modified form of coil.

In Fig. 1 of the drawing, the numeral 9 indicates the intake manifold of an internal combustion engine having an intake pipe 3 which is connected to the outlet pipe 4 of a carbureter 5 by means of flanges 6 and 7 fastened together by means of bolts 8 and nuts 9. A gasket 10 is clamped between the flanges 6 and 7. These parts are all of standard construction except the gasket 10 which is preferably constructed in the manner shown in Figs. 2 to 10 inclusive. These figures show a heating gasket of the proper size and shape for use on the smaller types of passenger automobiles, such as the Ford, Dodge, Overland, and the like.

The gasket 10 consists of five superposed layers or discs which are placed one upon another in the order shown in Figs. 1 to 8. The lower layer 11 shown in Fig. 8 consists of sheet copper or other electrically conducting material having a circular central opening 12 surrounded by a flange 13 having a slot 14 and a larger opening 15. The second layer 16, shown in Fig. 7, consists of insulating material such as sheet asbestos and may be provided with an inner tab 17 and an outer tab .18.

The third or central layer shown in Fig. 6 consists of a flatcircular ring 19 of copper or other suitable conducting material having an inner terminal projection 20, and an outer terminal projection 21. The circular opening in the ring 19 is somewhat larger than the flange 13, so that the ring 19 may be insulated from the upper and lower metal discs when the parts are assembled. The outer terminal 21 ma be covered with a sleeve or wrapping 18 In order to insure that this terminal will not be bent into contact with the upper and lower copper discs.

The fourth layer shown in Fig. 5 consists of insulating material and is similar in all respects to the insulating disc shown in Fig. 7. Its parts are correspondingly numbered. 1

The upper layer or. disc 22 consists of copper -or other conducting material and, like the lower disc 11 of Fig. 8, has a central opening 12 but does not have the flange 13. The disc 22 has an inner terminal projection 23 and may also have an outer terminal projection 24 ifdesired.

In assembling the gasket, the insulating disc of Fig. 7 is first placed upon the metal disc 11 of Fig. 8, the inner tab 17 of the disc 16 being inserted through the opening 15 in the flange 13. The central conducting ring 19 is then placed upon the disc 16 with the terminal projection 20 also extending through the opening 15. If desired, the ring 19 may be glued or otherwise attached to the disc 16, in order to prevent the terminal 20 from slipping into contact with the sides of the opening 15. Then the upper insulating disc 16 is fitted over the ring 19 and around the flange 13 with its tab 17 projecting through the opening 15. Lastly, the upper disc 22 is fitted over the flange 13 with its terminal projection 23 extending through the slot 14, and all of the discs are firmly secured together by spinning, pressing or otherwise forcing down the upper edge of the flange 13 into contact with the upper disc 22 as shown at 25 on Fig. 9. All of the discs 11, 16 and 22 have registering openings 26 near their ends which form the ordinary bolt holes in the gasket.

As thus assembled, the gasket has two terminals projecting into its circular inner opening 12, these terminals being electrically insulated from each other by the insulating discs 16. A coil 27 of suitable resistance wire, such as is employedin open electric heating apparatus, is connected between these terminals 20 and 23, the coil 27 being preferably arranged as shown in Figs. 2

and 9 in the form of a spiral with its smaller and lower end connected to the terminal 20, which is the positive or live terminal, and

1,454.,aee

its larger upper end connected to the terminal 23, w

"terminal.

ich is the negative or ground.

connected by means of a lead wire 28 to a suitable source of current, which may be the positive terminal of a battery 29 as shown, or may be the positive terminal of the motor of the automobile. A switch 30 may be inserted in the lead wire 28 and located at the drivers position for controlling the current through the coil 27. The negative or ground connection from the coil 27 is made b the terminal-23 and the outer discs 11 an 22 of the gasket which are firmly clamped to the flanges 6 and 7 so that a good ground connection is maintained at all times. This ordinarily forms a suflicient ground connection, but if desired, an additional ground connection may be provided as shown in dotted lines on Fig. 3, where the terminal 24 is connected to a lead wire 31, which is also connected to a washer 32 surrounding one of the bolts 8. Such an additional ground connection is useful when the gasket is coated with shellac or the like, or when the outside of the gasket is not covered with metal.

It will be observed that the positive or live terminal of the coil 27 is at the bottom of the coil where it is prevented at all times from contact with the pipes 3 and 4, while the upper and larger part of the coil 27, WlllCll may at times come in contact with the pipe 3, is the negative end of the coil. Therefore, no harm is done if the upper part of the coil touches the pipe 3, because this will merely complete the ground connection without short-circuiting the coil.

Figs. 11 and 12 show a modification in which the gasket, instead of being made oval to fit the flanges 6 and 7 is made circular, the circular outline of the gasket being shown at 33, and its several partsbeing numbered as in the preceding figures. This circular construction enables the same size of gasket to be used for several different types of automobiles, because many automobiles have intake pipes of the same diam eter but flanges of difi'erent sizes. Since the gasket is not held in place by the bolts 8 in the form shown in Figs. 11 and 12, a small flange 34 may be spun around the lower edge of the central opening to pro erly position the gasket with respect to t e pipes 3 and 4. The pipe 4 leading from the carbureter is always somewhat larger in diameter than the pipe 3, so that the flange 34 does not restrict the diameter of the manifold intake. Washers 35 may be provided on the bolts 8 to take up the space between the flanges outside of the gasket 33.

On some types of engines the carbureter messes is bolted directly to the manifold instead moldin of to a manifold intake pipe, and in some engines it may be inconvenient to insert the heating gasket in the joint directly above the carbu'reter. In such cases, the heating gasket may be inserted in the joint where the carburetor is attached to the manifold, or in the joints where the manifold. is attached to the cylinder block.

As a variation of the construction described above, the heating gasket may be made from a single piece of asbestos fabric or other insulating and heat-resisting material, of the shape and thickness of the gaskets shown in Figs. 9 or Ill, and with suitable openings for inserting the ends of a heating coil which may be of the form shown at 27 in Fig. 13, or may be otherwise constructed from wire or strip resistance material.

Another modified construction which may be employed consists in forming the entire gasket from a single block of molded insulation, such as the well known bakelite compositions, with tacings of copper, as estos or other relatively soft material to properly seal the pipe joint, and with the terminals of the heating coil mold ed in the insulation o'r extending through openings left for that purpose.-

As stated above, I consider that my invention consists broadl in the use of a heating element in the orm of a gasket to be substituted for the ordinary gasket in a pipe joint, especially between the carbureter and the intake manifold of an internal combustionengine. In carrying out this principle various details of construction may be employed, and I therefore wish it to be understood that my invention is not restricted to the precise form and construction of parts which I have shown and described, but is limited only by the scope of the appended claims. I

I claim as my invention:

1. A gasket adapted for insertion in a pipe joint comprising an outer metallic layer, an inner layer of metal electrically insulated from the said outer layer, and an exposed coil of resistance wire carried by the said gasket and having its ends electrically connected to the said outer layer and to the said inner conductor respectively.

2. A gasket adapted for insertion in a pipe joint and composed of annular outer discs of metal, an inner conducting disc,

discs of insulating material separating the said inner disc from the said outer discs, an exposed coil of resistance wire having its ends electrically connected to the said outer discs and to the said inner disc respectively, and means for fastening all of the said discs together.

3. A gasket adapted for insertion in a pipe joint and comprising an annular disc of metal having a central opening and a flange extendin around the said 0 ening, the said flange having a plurality 0 openings formed therein, an annular conducting member of sheet metal having a terminal projection extending through one of the said openings and out of contact therewith, the inner diameter of the said conductor being larger than the diameter of the said flange, discs of insulating material disposed on both sides of the said inner conductor, a second disc of material having a terminal projection extending through the other opening in the said flange, the said flange being turned down to hold all of the said discs together, and an exposed coil of resistance wire having its ends attached respectively to the two terminal projections extending through the said flange.

4. A gasket adapted for insertion in a pipe joint and composed of a plurality of superposed layers conforming to the shape of the flanges between which the gasket is to be clamped, and having registering bolt holes and registering central openings, at least one of the outer layers being composed of conducting material and one of the inner layers being also com osed of conducting material and insulated rom the outer conducting layer by layers of insulating material, and an exposed coil of resistance wi're supported within the said central opening and having its ends electricall connected to the said outer and inner con uctors respecmo electric current through said conductor.

In testimony whereof, I the said Warren .T. Snrrz have hereunto set my hand.

WALTER T. SEITZ, 

